Beginning in the late 1970's, law enforcement agencies began to employ electric weapons as a firearm substitute in certain confrontational situations that could otherwise have justified the use of deadly force, for example against knife wielding assailants at close range. These agencies have also employed electric weapons successfully to avoid injury to peace officers, assailants, and innocent bystanders in situations where the use of conventional firearms would have been either impractical or unjustified.
The electric weapon's characteristic, near instantaneous, incapacitating power has been employed to disable an assailant holding jagged glass to a hostage's throat without any physical injury occurring to the hostage. It has also been used to prevent a raging parent from hurling his infant from a high rise, preventing a suicidal man from leaping from a high rise, and subduing unarmed combatants all without serious physical injury to the peace officer or assailant.
Currently manufactured ballistic weapons that output electrical pulses to immobilize and capture human and other animal assailants (e.g., electric weapons including TASER® electric weapons marketed by TASER International, Inc.) have a lower lethality than conventional firearms. An electric weapon launches a first electrically conductive dart and a second electrically conductive dart. Each of the darts remains connected to the weapon after launch by a first and a second electrically conductive wire, respectively. The launched darts strike a target and each dart couples to the target and remains coupled to the target for a period of time. Such coupling can be achieved by a first and a second barbed metallic (conductive) needle (each being positioned at a front of the first and second darts, respectively) the imbed into the target and remain imbedded in the target. Electrical pulses from a pulse generator on-board the weapon travel through the first wire to the first dart, from the first data through the target, and into the second dart. Next, the electrical pulses return to the weapon via the second wire. Thus, a complete circuit is formed of the pulse generator, the first and second wires, the first and second darts (and their respective first and second barbed metallic needles), and a target, e.g., a human, animal, device, or other such target.
It is the delivery of the electrical pulses through the portion of this circuit that comprises the target that results in the incapacitation of the target, provided the electrical pulses are selected to effect incapacitation. The nature of such pulses as heretofore employed is described, inter alia, in, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,102,870 to Nerheim, incorporated herein by reference. Electric weapons are described, inter alia, in, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,575,073 and 5,841,622 to McNulty and U.S. Pat. No. 6,636,412 to Smith, each incorporated herein by reference. McNulty describes an electrical discharge weapon with improved range and an electrical restraint device that outputs 14 to 17 pulses per second for a 3 to 5 second duration. Nerheim describes electronic disabling devices that output from 9 to 19 pulses per second for a 5 second duration or for a duration as long as the trigger switch is held “on”. Smith describes an apparatus for preventing locomotion that outputs 2 to 40, preferably, 5 to 15 pulses per second for a duration of 6 to 7 seconds. These current pulses through target tissue cause contraction of skeletal muscles and make the muscles inoperable, preventing use of the muscles in locomotion by the target.
The TASER International model X26 electric weapon launches two darts at substantially equal velocities of about 150 feet per second from a replaceable cartridge attached to the electric weapon. A relatively high voltage is impressed across the darts to conduct a stimulus current in a circuit through the target that may include one or more air gaps. The high voltage forms an arc across these air gaps for each pulse of the stimulus current. The model X26 electric weapon may be used without a cartridge by pressing terminals against the target. The same stimulus signal is used because one or more arcs through clothing may be required to deliver the current through the target. The stimulus current includes a monophasic pulse repeated at typically 17 or 19 pulses per second for 5 seconds. The pulses constitute a current of 2.1 milliamps, or 111 microcoulombs of charge per pulse at 19 pulses per second. Other known electric weapons provide a stimulus current that includes a monophasic pulse repeated at a rate from 5 to 40 pulses per second. The reciprocal of a pulse repetition rate defines a pulse repetition period that for rates 5, 17, 19 and 40 pulses per second defines periods of 200 milliseconds, 59 milliseconds, 53 milliseconds, and 25 milliseconds respectively.
The present invention advantageously addresses the above and other needs.